


Home, A Place You've Never Been

by RomanMoray



Series: Between Two Wars [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Domesticity, Force Ghost(s), Hurt/Comfort, Jawas (Star Wars), M/M, Meditation, Pining, Pre-Slash, Slooooow burn, Tatooine, The Force, Tusken Raiders (Star Wars), dead masters are shitty therapists, no beta as usual, some depression in the beginning but we good
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:47:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 20,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25712305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RomanMoray/pseuds/RomanMoray
Summary: Between the bloody, gut-wrenching mash-up of memories bombarding Cody as he slept, he dreamed that he was visited by the ethereal, looming form of General Kenobi.It wasn't the same General Kenobi that he remembered, though. His wavy auburn hair was longer than it had ever gotten in life, long enough to tie into a tail, and streaked with swathes of gray at his temples. Two long strands fell forward into his face as he looked down at Cody, in his iconic 'mulling-over-a-plan-that-Cody-won't-like' pose, stroking his short beard with one hand. His face was more lined, but he didn't look old. He didn't know if General Kenobi was capable of looking old.
Relationships: CC-2224 | Cody/Obi-Wan Kenobi
Series: Between Two Wars [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1864813
Comments: 133
Kudos: 528





	1. A Day in the Life of CC-2224

**Author's Note:**

> Hey y'all! I am back, and with me I bring more codywan. Didn't even process that codywan week was happening, but we can pretend I'm starting this story for that... except now I think it might be after codywan week? Nevermind.
> 
> I am not sure where exactly this is going, but it's safe to say that this is the first installment of a series will probably span from a several years after Order 66 to a bit before ANH...or maybe past that, depending on how much writing I can do before school starts. We shall see. If I do that, things will have to get a little AU, since I'm mentally incapable of writing major character deaths. 
> 
> Later in the series, I'll be taking some inspiration from what canonical stories exist regarding Obi-Wan's exile on Tatooine, but they'll be altered a lot to incorporate Cody of course. Anyway, enjoy!
> 
> -Roman

CC-2224 had served the Empire for nearly seven years when it happened.

His day started off as it usually did. His alarm woke him up for his shift. It was still quite early in the ship's day cycle, but CC-2224 sat up immediately, completely alert. He checked his comm, quickly reading through reports that had come in while he slept—two arrests, three executions, one system annexation, and one lead on Saw Gerrera's band of terrorists that he needed to assign someone to follow up on.

CC-2224 donned his gray-green officer's uniform methodically, his eyes on his colorless, glossy armor tucked in the corner of his barren quarters. He did not remember the time before the Empire well enough to know that something was missing from it. He knew, technically, everything that happened to him during the Clone Wars, but the memories themselves were disconnected from his identity, hazy and impersonal. Trying to recall specific events was like trying to remember a dream from several nights ago, and pushing it only left him with a piercing headache and a tight feeling in his chest.

It didn't matter—he remembered enough to serve his Emperor with unwavering, brutal efficiency. Every Imperial protocol, every battle strategy, every combat technique he'd ever learned. CC-2224 didn't need to recall how things used to be, as long as he knew how to arm and disarm forty-three kinds of bombs and maintain control of a legion of stormtroopers with increasingly unfamiliar faces.

It was his personal opinion that natural born officers were inferior to clones, but the facilities on Kamino were long gone, and very few clones remained in the service of the Empire. Most either died or simply wasted away, leaving behind a shell, tossed aside by the Imperial Military. They did not need to waste their time on broken men when volunteers from the thousands upon thousands of conquered systems were applying to the academies and graduating faster than they could be assigned.

CC-2224 walked to the mess hall to retrieve a nutrient bar, then made his way to the bridge. The halls of the _Vindicator_ were as silent as the void of space outside, apart from the hiss of the air recyclers and the occasional beep of a control panel. CC-2224 passed officers and stormtroopers. Stiff nods were exchanged once or twice, but for the most part CC-2224 ignored and was ignored by his shipmates.

The bridge of the _Vindicator_ was not busy. They were in hyperspace, en route to Savareen to assess its resources. If they were deemed unneeded, CC-2224 was to take a company of troopers to the planet's surface and enlist—forcibly, if necessary—the locals to work as farmers or miners on a planet with more natural resources. Either way, the planet was going to be useful to the Empire.

"Sir, we'll be emerging from hyperspace in ten minutes." A technician called up to CC-2224, not looking up from her console. 

"Put us in orbit near the capital city." CC-2224 replied. Or, perhaps capital village would be more apt, if this intelligence was accurate. Savareen was not exactly a hotspot of civilization. CC-2224 was beginning to question just how advantageous this venture was. Well, at the very least, the Empire would get some workers out of all this. It wasn't his job to wonder about his orders.

"Very good, sir."

When they dropped out of hyperspace, CC-2224 stared unseeingly out of the viewport as the blue-white streaks of starlight resolved themselves into distant systems and the azure and beige planet came into view. They ran their scans, they updated the Empire's intelligence on the planet's population, resources, and landscape—as CC-2224 had suspected, there wasn't much of interest.

"Ready five transports for landing. We—" He was interrupted by the ship's alarm system. Several technicians' panels were flashing red, and CC-2224 heard a distant impact. CC-2224 sighed. Whoever it was—pirates, smugglers, terrorists, even a local militia—they were no match for a star destroyer. 

"Raise shields, prepare to fire on hostiles."

"Sir, uh—our deflector shields are disabled." No matter. They were still outgunned. An eclectic unit of small-to-medium sized starships zipped in front of the viewport in loose formation. There were more than CC-2224 would have guessed, but if they were lucky, not a serious threat.

"Launch fighters at once. Let's end this quickly, we have work to do.”

"Yes, sir!" The next volley of cannonfire was directed towards the bridge. It shuddered, but maintained its integrity. Three of the starships broke away to deal with the TIEs. The ships danced and swooped around each other, green and red lasers firing in every direction.

CC-2224's brow furrowed. This attack was well organized, and they had to have known they were coming. Their pilots were talented, and CC-2224 deployed the rest of the TIEs as two combusted in space in front of him. The hostiles were overwhelmed quickly. Three of the smaller starships went up in flames. Soon, there was just one old A-wing and two freighters remaining. They dove and spun to avoid the TIE fighters' lasers and the _Vindicator_ 's cannons. The A-wing was fast, seeming to anticipate the trajectory of their shots before they were even fired. That pilot must have the reflexes of a—

"INCOMING!" Distracted by the protracted dogfight, CC-2224 failed to notice the one smoking, nearly disabled freighter reposition itself to face the _Vindicator._ He just had time to register the telltale glow of the ships' hyperdrive activating before it jumped right towards them.

There was a tremendous grinding, wrenching sound of metal giving way as the freighter tore through the body of the star destroyer. The bridge tipped, and CC-2224 struggled to maintain his balance. People were yelling, abandoning their posts to sprint out of the bridge and towards the escape pods as a volley of explosions shook what was left of the ship. CC-2224 joined the fray. He estimated they had roughly five minutes before the ship was completely broken apart.

Instead of going to the escape pods, he ran down the packed halls toward the docking bay. He hoped it was still there—he'd rather be able to control where he ended up, which meant borrowing a shuttle. There was another horrible crash, and the shiny black floor beneath him jolted so violently that he was launched headfirst into a wall. It didn't knock him out, but was a close call—CC-2224 fought through a wave of dizziness and nausea to continue towards the hangar, which was nearly empty, and also on fire.

"You!" He called to a soldier in a pilot's armor. "We're getting out on this shuttle." He pointed to the nearest one. If they could just get out of dodge before the main reactor was breached, they could make it to an adjacent system and call for help. Rodia was nearby, as well as Geonosis, Christophsis, and even Tatooine in a pinch.

The pilot got them in the air quickly, CC-2224 hung on. Now that he wasn't running, he could really feel where he hit his head. The disorientation was starting to set in, and his adrenaline was no longer enough to keep him focused. Something was very, very wrong—his head was burning, he was confused, he was seeing flashes of a rocky planet and dusty gold and white armor and a body falling from a cliff, many years ago...

CC-2224 held his head and forced himself into the present. They were just barely out of the hanger when what was left of the _Vindicator_ blew, and the shock wave launched them away violently. The shuttle was damaged, and the systems began wailing in earnest, but the hyperdrive stayed miraculously online.

"Get us out of here!" He managed, and he saw the stars stretch as they jumped into hyperspace. Then, CC-2224 passed out.

\-----

Ben Kenobi was patching a hole in the domed pourstone roof of his home when he looked up to see a ship landing on the Northern horizon. Well, not landing—crashing. It was coming in much too fast, and trailing a stream of black smoke. He watched it fall. It looked like it'd come down on the far side of the Xelric Draw, just outside Mos Espa.

If they'd been headed for the Wastes, or anywhere away from civilization, Ben would have gone out to see if he could help. Tatooine didn't get many visitors, even accidental ones, and Ben was grateful to have an excuse to see other people, even if there was peril involved. No matter how much time came between him and the Order, he'd never lose that fundamental Jedi instinct to give help when help was needed.

Instead, he watched the ship disappear behind the distant range of dunes, retied his hair in a loose tail at the nape of his neck, and continued his work.

\-----

_"Let's get a move on, my dear commander, we've got a battle to win here!" General Kenobi called down to him from his monstrous green steed, a massive grin lighting up his face, before charging off toward the rocky wall of the sinkhole._

_"Yes, sir," Cody replied fondly, mostly to himself, as General Kenobi was already too far away to hear him. He watched the head of coppery hair depart, and once again reflected on how lucky he was to serve under the most talented (and most insane) High Jedi General ever to grace the Galactic Army of the Republic. Cody knew intuitively that this war was almost over, and though the knowledge that his brothers would stop dying in droves filled him with joy, he knew he'd miss going into battle with General Kenobi like a lost limb. For years, they'd seen each other nearly all day, every day. Cody had no idea how he'd be able to adjust to life without the Jedi's enigmatic-yet-also-grounding presence. He hoped they'd still see each other sometimes, if General Kenobi wasn't too busy with whatever Jedi did when the Republic was at peace._

_His comm beeped, and he took it out._

_"Commander Cody. The time has come. Execute Order 66."_

_"Yes, my lord," CC-2224 said. Unlike Cody, CC-2224 cared little for the future of his relationship with General Kenobi._

\-----

Cody woke up with a start, and groaned immediately—everything hurt. His skin felt hot and raw. With some effort, he managed to open his eyes. Everything was a little blurry. He...he was—o _h, kriff. Kriff._

He saw the wreckage of the ship several meters away. It was still burning. There was enough blood on the transparisteel of the shuttle's cockpit that he didn't need to look to know that the pilot was dead. But those were the least of his worries.

Panic flooded his body, and he could barely feel the pain in his broken arm and broken ribs as he surged to his feet. His head swam, he felt sick—sand and blood covered his singed uniform. He staggered and fell again, and when he closed his eyes to block out the world, memories crashed into him, sharp and clear like he hasn't felt in years.

And with them, anguish. The Republic was gone. Rex, Wolffe, Gregor, Waxer, Boil, Crys, Wooley—his brothers—were _gone._ The Jedi Order was gone. General Kenobi was gone. Cody felt himself start to shake. Cody himself had ordered the death of his general. _His friend._ He heard a raspy, haunting wail of pain, then realized it was coming from him. He curled in on himself in the sand.

For the first time in nearly seven years, Cody knew _exactly_ who he was. And it hurt.


	2. The Kindness of Strangers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The second day of Cody's Rough Week (TM) begins. Ben gets some unsolicited advice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Probably gonna tag this fic with a depression tw for this chapter specifically, just in case.

Madj was hauling her trade goods over the dunes, C-3L in tow, when she saw the smoke. It was not far off their route home, so she redirected them towards the dark plumes. A crash out here was bad news for everyone involved, except perhaps the local scavengers. But scavengers were unlikely to provide medical aid. 

When she made over the crest of the last dune between her and the downed ship, she stopped short. She'd never come across a shuttle like it before—not out here, anyway—but she knew an Imperial craft when she saw one.

There was a moment where she thought she might turn away. No one had noticed her yet—if there was even anyone alive to notice her. It had clearly been a bad crash. But then she saw the man in the sand, bloody and burnt, unconscious. Her sharp eyes could see the ragged rise and fall of his chest even from this distance. He was in bad shape—it was impressive that he'd survived in the first place, but if he didn't have his wounds tended to by nightfall, he would surely die. Slowly and painfully, if her superficial assessment of his injuries was anything to go by.

Madj sighed. She was much, much too old for this _poodoo._

\-----

For the next two days, Cody oscillated slowly between semi-awareness and sleep. While he slept, his dreams tormented him, but being awake was worse. Once his mind worked through the initial waves of physical pain, the grief set in and all he wanted to do was go back to sleep.

He shouldn't escape into oblivion, he knew that. But there wasn't much else for him to do. As he'd lain in the desert, he hadn't minded the thought of dying there, but apparently the universe wasn't done with him just yet.

The fourth, or maybe the fifth time he woke up, he opened his stinging eyes to find himself face-to-face with an ancient Lasat. Her huge, white-less yellow eyes were inches away from him. It was enough to make him flinch, sending spasms of pain down his body.

"I'm changin' your bandages. Don't move." Her voice was rough and cracking with age, but her hands on his sides and arm were steady as they worked. He couldn't seem to move his head enough to look at what was going on, but he wasn't sure he wanted to anyway.

"Why," he asked. It didn't really come out right though, and his pained groan elicited no response from his purple-furred savior. She had to know he was an Imperial officer, and Cody had seen—and done—enough terrible things to know that he deserved no kindness from this woman. 

Cody listened as the gravely voice conversed quietly with someone he couldn't see—a droid—and stared up at the linen ceiling through which the intense sunlight filtered. He wondered, as he drifted back into unconsciousness, where exactly he'd ended up.

\-----

The bluffs overlooking his home were Ben's favorite place to meditate.

He'd discovered this particular shaded and hidden outcropping of rock not long after he'd set himself up on Tatooine. Ben liked his house, and had spent a long time improving it to suit his needs, but he'd always hated being cooped up anywhere for long. Roaming the canyons had been a natural way to keep him from going stir crazy, even long after he'd mostly adjusted to the eerie monotony of a hermit's life. The landscape was just treacherous enough to be engaging, and learning to navigate it had provided him with some much-needed mental and physical stimulus.

By now, Ben knew the spires of red rock and craggy ravines like the back of his hand. When he meditated out here, he could feel the canyons around him like so many stony limbs. He could see the remains of the Tusken camp several miles to the southeast, and feel the rumble of the earth when a pair of Jawa sandcrawlers trundled along the edge of the dune sea in the west. It was nice, despite everything, to learn the unique way the Force felt in a particular place—it was a familiarity that had been foreign to him all his life. It was not the Jedi way to be stagnant.

"If you're not careful, my young Padawan, your hair will get as long as mine was." Ben smiled sadly, not needing to open his eyes to see who had joined him.

It was one of the dubious benefits of having an absurd amount of time on his hands that Ben Kenobi had been able to keep his dead Master's council on many occasions. It required a level of meditation mastery that, quite simply, no one but perhaps Yoda would have had the time to achieve. Before Tatooine, Ben had never seen a Force ghost—he'd read the theories, as many had, but had never truly believed. Even after all these years, the Force continued to surprise him.

"I don't know about that, Master Qui-Gon."

"It might suit you. You've got the gray in the right places." Ben opened his eyes to shoot his former Master's bluish, misty figure with a withering glance. He looked the mostly the same as he had in life, which had been alarming at first, but Ben was used to it by now. At first, all Qui-Gon had done was show up in his increasingly disturbing visions to dispense vague Jedi wisdom regarding the merits of letting go, but over time he'd started manifesting seemingly just to check in. It was a very un-ghost-like choice, in Ben's opinion. Perhaps the Force pitied him.

"You should get a droid."

"I don't need a droid."

"Or a tooka." Ben didn't respond. He didn't want to admit that he'd thought about that, but Qui-Gon probably knew anyway.

"I'm fine." Qui-Gon released a half-snort, half-chuckle that made Ben's eye twitch.

"Well, in any case," he said slowly. "You might want to consider heading into town tomorrow." Ben stared. For all Qui-Gon's needling comments, his former Master had never told him to do anything specific before.

"Why would I want to do that?"

"Oh, you know. Maybe you need some tea." Ben had _plenty_ of tea, thank you very much.

Before he could question his ghostly companion any further, however, Qui-Gon vanished. Ben sighed, adjusted his posture, then continued his meditation in silence for a few more hours before making his way back down to his home.

He spent the rest of his day doing a full inventory of his stores. He didn't need tea, but he did need some parts for the cooling system and could do with some food that wasn't emergency rations. The suns were setting by the time he was finished. He watched them disappear over the horizon in a haze of red, purple, and gold as he munched on a nutrient bar and considered his options.

Whenever he needed to go into town, he usually went to Bestine, Mos Eisley, or even Anchorhead if he was feeling ambitious. The latter was very far, which was safer for his anonymity, and it had the added benefit of getting him close to the Lars' moisture farm, where he could check on little Luke from a distance. He wished, selfishly, that he could have a more active role in Luke's life, but his uncle Owen had made it clear that he didn't think that was a good idea. Given the fate of his fellow Jedi, Ben didn't really blame him. 

All that aside, Ben had a good feeling about the much closer spaceport of Mos Espa.


	3. Familiar Faces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben gets a bit of a shock, goes shopping, and unnerves Jawas—not in that order.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you haven't seen Rebels, or anything else where this is mentioned, the Ashla is what Lasats call the Force—probably would make sense just from the context, but I figured I'd mention it anyway.

The next morning, Ben Kenobi was awake before the suns. He packed a small overnight bag and fetched a satchel filled with an array of scraps and refurbished parts to trade with. He had money in various currencies, but the people of Tatooine were much more comfortable with direct trading. He put on his robe and left, heading for one of the sandcrawler routes to wait for one of the wedge-shaped fortresses to pick him up. He didn't have to wait long, and they were on their way by the time the sky was starting to lighten.

Ben had memorized their complex schedules long ago, mostly so that he'd never have to buy a landspeeder. The Jawas were highly suspicious of him—humans didn't normally ride in sandcrawlers if they could avoid it—but he paid his way with scraps and offers to fix various apparatuses or translate for people who didn't understand Jawa Trade Talk, and so they allowed it. Ben was a master of making himself useful.

It was several hours before they arrived on the outskirts of Mos Espa. Ben bid a cheery farewell to his beady-eyed hosts, who nodded back at him, muttering darkly to each other before shuffling back into the dark maw of the crawler.

Mos Espa was full of activity at midday. Ships—mostly freighters—came and went, refueling and trading before heading on their way. Ben took a moment to steady himself, overwhelmed by the sudden press of noise and life after several weeks of communing only with ghosts and the occasional jakrab. He put his hood up to shade his face and made a slow circuit around the busy market area, focusing on his breath until he felt at ease enough to start shopping.

The open air market was shabby and hectic, and many of the stalls were clearly fronts for more unsavory businesses, but it was not without its charm. Younglings of all species played together in the dusty streets, and there was an impressive array of colorful imported produce and local meats to choose from. Artisans and mechanics proudly displayed their wares, and the mood and music emanating from the cantinas was jovial.

Ben was nearly done making his purchases and was about to find an inn when he heard his name over the general chatter. He looked around to see Madj, a local trader and seamstress, hailing him from several yards away. She was waving a large tubular vegetable over her gray-haired head like a flag.

Madj had been introduced to Ben by the owner of one of market stall owners nearly four years ago. They shared a love of exotic teas and ancient Rylothian poetry. Having friends was a risk in Ben's position, but he saw Madj only once every two or three months at most. Qui-Gon was right—he _did_ need to talk to living beings at least once in a while, and the elderly Lasat had so many wonderful stories of her homeworld and her travels around the outer rim.

Ben made his way over to Madj. His warm smile faltered slightly when he registered her expression. Her purple-furred brow was even more creased than usual with worry, and there was a small frown on her thin lips.

"Come," she commanded, turning away as he approached. She began leading him to her home, which was just off the main drag.

"What's wrong?"

"Ya know about healing, yes?" Ben was concerned now. He wasn't much of a healer, really—he could Force-heal, though not expertly, and knew some herbal remedies, but he didn't think that was what Madj meant. He wasn't a medic.

"I know a little bit of field medicine," he said diplomatically. "Probably not enough. Are you sick? I could spare some credits to help you hire—"

" _No,_ " she cut him off abruptly, but said no more. They reached her home, and she held the beaded curtain to the side for him to step inside.

Madj's home was about the same size as his own, except it had a separate bedroom in the back, and the front room was a comfortable living space and kitchen. It was decorated with rich, colorful wall hangings, some of which Madj herself had woven, and keepsakes from Lasan. Her green DUM-series pit droid, C-3L, was folded up by the door, in standby mode to charge. The cool air and the shade felt good on Ben's skin after the heat of the suns. He pulled down his hood and took a sip of water from his canteen as they sat down on the big red cushions on her floor.

"You speak with the Ashla," Madj announced. Ben coughed.

"I—what?" 

"You're not subtle. The Ashla is strong with ya. I'm old, Ben Kenobi, and have met your kind before—ya need not deny it, I have no interest in sharin' your secrets." Perhaps Obi-Wan Kenobi would have had a snappy retort to that, but Ben's skills of redirection hadn't been tested on anything more important than haggling in a long time, and so he said nothing. 

"There was a wreck on the outskirts a few days ago. I found the only survivor—I've done what I can for 'im, but there's somethin' very wrong with 'im. He's in pain." Ben stared at the wall behind Madj's head. 

"I can't help. Even if I thought I would be able to..." He met her penetrating yellow gaze briefly, but found it too difficult to hold and looked away again.

"You can help. I know it," Madj paused, then grinned slightly. "I can get you dinner and you can stay in Kera'marza's inn for free." Ben sighed. He knew as soon as he'd heard her story that he'd end up helping anyway, whether it was a good idea or not. It was one thing to use the Force in the safety of his isolated oasis, but there were just so many people here. Anything could happen. 

"I'll take a look. I make no promises, though—it was never something I was good at." Madj snorted, then got up walked to a low dresser where a dark bundle rested.

"There's somethin' else ya should know too," Madj said cautiously. She picked up the bundle in her large clawed hand and tossed it to him. When he saw what it was, he groaned. 

It was an Imperial officer's jacket. A commander's, going by the rank insignia plaque, though they could have changed their structure since the Republic. He was suddenly glad he didn't have Quinlan's powers of retrocognition—he doesn't want to know what this uniform has seen. 

"Madj..."

"I know, alright? But I couldn't leave him to die. Then we're no better'n them."

"You sound like a...someone who talks to the Ashla." He found he didn't want to say the word 'Jedi,' as though to utter the word was to bring a storm of star destroyers directly to them like a homing beacon.

"You'll still do it, yes?" Ben didn't answer for a few moments, instead tossing the jacket to the floor in front of him and rubbing his face with his hands. It wasn't the end of the world—he could keep the officer asleep while he worked. He might not even need to, if he was as injured as Madj seemed to think. He could have his friend say that she'd found a bacta tank in her closet or something if he made a miraculous recovery.

"I suppose so."

"Good man. He's laid up in my bed."

"Alright." Ben stood in one fluid motion and started toward the back of the house. He stopped just before the narrow doorway, suddenly apprehensive. There was a faintly familiar presence here—he was surprised he hadn't noticed it when he'd first walked in. He couldn't quite place it, so he shook off the feeling and strode in.

Ben stood frozen. Asleep in the small cot along the far wall of the room was Commander Cody.

\----- 

Between the bloody, gut-wrenching mash-up of memories bombarding Cody as he slept, he dreamed that he was visited by the ethereal, looming form of General Kenobi.

It wasn't the same General Kenobi that he remembered, though. His wavy auburn hair was longer than it had ever gotten in life, long enough to tie into a tail, and streaked with swathes of gray at the temples. Two long strands fell forward into his face as he looked down at Cody, in his iconic 'mulling-over-a-plan-that-Cody-won't-like' pose, stroking his short beard with one hand. His face was more lined, but he didn't look old. He didn't know if General Kenobi was capable of looking old.

His gleaming, pale blue eyes were just the same. In them there was something like trepidation—Cody didn't like it. He wondered, absurdly, if General Kenobi was here to guide him into the afterlife. That couldn't be right, though—he didn't know where he was going, but he was certain it wouldn't be the same place as a Jedi Master. His mind drifted to a conversation they once had on the bridge of the _Negotiator_ , in the middle of the ship's night cycle after a particularly torturous campaign. Many _vod'e_ had died, as had another Jedi's Padawan, prompting Cody to ask his General what the _jetii_ thought of death.

_"The Living Force is the energy of all life. It flows through all of us...it is the here and now, growth and vitality. It feeds the Cosmic Force, which binds the universe together. When a Jedi dies, their spirit joins the Cosmic Force. We are not meant to grieve those who leave us to pass into it, though such things are easier said than done." Cody watched his General's face as he spoke, his eyes reflecting the stars outside. Cody didn't have much experience with beauty, but even back then, he knew it when he saw it._

_"So, it's like an afterlife?"_

_"Sort of," General Kenobi looked over at him, smiling mysteriously. "Except without the 'after' part." Cody hadn't known what to make of that._

A foreign feeling of tranquility washed over Cody. He watched through heavy eyelids as the dream-version of General Kenobi reached toward him slowly, as though trying not to startle him.

"Sleep." Cody's eyes closed. He felt two fingers press gently into the center of his forehead, like some sort of strange blessing. Cody slept.


	4. Lost Names, Found

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cody recovers. A bit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of the merits of writing several chapters ahead of when I post is that when I inevitably get stuck on one short chapter for, like, a week, I can keep posting! I wrote this one during a flash flood warning at home—it's funny, y'know, cause they're in the desert...anyway.

Ben Kenobi spent the next morning cleaning and tuning up a pair of astromechs picked up by the Jawas in exchange for his ride home. It was a mindless task, so he allowed his thoughts to wander as he worked.

He was stumped. He'd been able to remove what was left of the organic chip in Cody's brain and speed up his healing to some extent. It had been quite taxing—he would need to rest for a while before using the Force heavily again, but it had been active for so long... Ben had only the vaguest idea of how the chips worked in the first place, let alone their long-term impacts on a person's mind. He hoped he'd saved _his_ Cody, but he couldn't even be sure if his Cody still existed. It may have been cowardly of him, but he hadn't wanted to stick around long enough to find out. It had been a shock to find him here, of all places, and Ben Kenobi did not believe in coincidences. As much as he hated to admit it, even to himself, he needed to be ready to pack up and leave if Cody went back to the Empire once he was fully recovered.

Ben told himself it was to ensure Luke's safety, but really he just couldn't stand the thought of facing the hatred of someone who he'd once counted among his closest friends.

To Madj's credit, she seemed to appreciate that she'd unintentionally asked quite a lot of him. She'd looked suitably alarmed when he'd staggered out of the bedroom nearly an hour and a half after entering, leaning heavily against the wall, face drained of color. They'd eaten together, then she'd promptly escorted him to the inn to crash for the night with promises to only ask him for very trivial favors in the near future.

He only hoped the Force knew what it was doing, sending Cody back to him after all this time. 

\-----

Cody had been on Tatooine for nearly four full days before he could stay awake for more then a couple minutes at a time.

As a result, when he sat up that evening, he felt like he'd been in a trash compactor. But his mind was clearer than it had been in all that time, and his ribs and arm no longer ached. He looked down at his chest to see a fresh scar there—an angry gash running down his right side, from just under his pectoral muscle to his hip bone. He poked it experimentally, but felt no pain.

He did a mental scan of the room he was in. The stone walls were covered with wall hangings of some kind. Through the fabric roof, he could hear the sounds of children squealing gleefully nearby and the occasional revving of a speeder.

"Ah, you're awake! You owe me big time, officer." Cody snapped up, ramrod straight, and looked over to the doorway. The Lasat was standing there with her droid peering shyly around the skirt of her elaborately patterned dress and long shawl. She had a kind face and gigantic ears, even for a Lasat, that reminded Cody of Master Yoda. His chest clenched.

"Thank you. For... saving me." He felt as though he should be saying something else too, but that seemed like a good place to start.

"I don't believe in leavin' people to die in the desert. I'm Madj, this is my home. This little idiot is C-3L, or 'Cell' if ya like. You're welcome to stay until you're fully healed. What's your name, son?"

It took Cody a moment to answer.

"Cody," he said finally, and the name felt horrifyingly unfamiliar on his lips. No one had called him Cody in years.

"Alright, officer Cody—" he winced.

"Just Cody." He didn't know what he was, but he _definitely_ wasn't going to be an officer again any time soon. Madj gave him a measured look. Her yellow eyes were quite unsettling.

"When you're ready, there's dinner. A big guy like you not eatin' for all that time, I'm sure you're hungry." The Lasat wandered off as she spoke, tailed by C-3L. Cody _was_ hungry, but the idea of eating made his stomach turn unpleasantly.

Getting to the main room of Madj's home and then to the table was a bit of a challenge. Cody ached in a way he had never ached before, and his head swam with every step he took. It was worth it, though, because despite his misgivings about food, whatever it was that Madj had made smelled delicious.

" _Vor'e,_ " he said absent-mindedly as a plate of meat and vegetables was foisted on him. They ate in silence. Madj offered him a cup of tea, which he politely declined. The earthy scent of it stirred up the deluge of dark, gnawing grief he was doing his best to keep at bay. He needed to distract himself.

"Where are we?" Cody asked.

"Mos Espa," she replied. At Cody's blank stare, she added, "Tatooine." _Hutts_ , Cody thought. That was the extent of his knowledge about Tatooine—Jabba's stronghold was enough to keep both the Republic and the Empire from having much to do with the planet. In some ways, that made it the best place he could have ended up.

Then it occurred to him that for the first time since he was decanted, Cody had no idea what the _kriff_ he was supposed to be doing. There was no war. Really, his only obligation was to stay out of the Empire's way—he was certainly listed as KIA, no one would look for him.

He was also completely alone.

"Um..." he started, not sure entirely what to ask first. "Do you know where I might find some work around here?" Madj's eyes widened in surprise.

"You intendin' to stay on Tatooine?" Her eyes narrowed. "Don't ya have family somewhere? What about your Empire?" The way she said "Empire" confirmed Cody's suspicion that this was not a place he'd be welcomed as a former commander. As for family, well... he'd once had thousands of brothers. Once again, Cody felt slightly sick.

"There's no one." He didn't address the Imperial part of her question.

"Well," Madj considered for a moment. "I can ask around for ya. In the meantime, I have some house repairs you could start on. Can't pay much, but you can stay here, and I'll feed ya." Cody nodded his assent.

\-----

_Welcome all, to the Gizka Gliz Radio Hour, where we play all your favorite swingin', swayin', techno tunes—here's Repvit Ronda and the Bantha Skeletons with their fresh new hit, "To all the Moons and Back"..._

Ben hummed along to the tinny notes of the electric valachord as he tinkered with a pair of broken macrobinoculars, a cup of tea cooling slowly at his elbow. The twin suns were baking the air outside, but down in the dark basement of his home the hewn-bedrock walls shed a coolness that was refreshingly damp. In the hotter months, Ben spent most of his time down here. He was just resetting the mended lens of the macrobinoculars when a voice behind him made Ben jump out of his skin.

"So, that's it then?" Ben twirled in his chair so fast that he upset his teacup. Qui-Gon was sitting cross-legged on the floor behind him, his chin propped up in his hands. Cursing, Ben pulled a rag from a drawer and blotted at the spilled tea, then refilled the cup from the kettle and replaced both at a safe distance away from his elbows. Qui-Gon watched, looking ghostly and benign.

"It'd be polite to knock." Qui-Gon rapped a phantom fist twice on the stone floor, but of course, no sound was produced. Ben sighed. He didn't need to ask to know what his former Master was talking about.

"What was I supposed to do?" Qui-Gon rolled his eyes, a staple of their lineage. Ben was reminded, once again, how similar Anakin was to the other man—if their places had been switched, and Anakin had been raised by Qui-Gon, Ben was convinced that the damage to the galaxy would have been irreversible.

Not that things had necessarily turned out well as it was.

"I haven't watched you become an anxiety-ridden recluse for the past six years just for you to ignore the Force dropping an old friend in your lap."

"It isn't that simple. My sanity isn't the only thing at stake here. It is, in fact, the _least_ important aspect of..." he waved a hand over his head in an exasperated, all-encompassing gesture. "All of _this._ " Qui-Gon just looked at him, his lips pursed in a thin line of judgment.

"How would you even know that it was...still him?"

"The same way you know."

"What does it matter, anyway? Even if it _was_ him, there would be no reason for him to remain here on Tatooine, let alone _with me_." Ben swiveled back around in his chair in a silent dismissal. Behind his back, Qui-Gon's lips got, if possible, even thinner and more judge-y. A bouncy melody faded away on the radio, and the announcer's voice boomed jarringly out of the laughing crackle of static.

_That was Paks Paggles, folks, and now we'll be turning it over to your local radio towers for the traffic and weather..._


	5. Two Fires

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cody burns stuff; Ben has a dream.

Most Espa was no stranger to strangers.

That said, the locals did love to talk. Over their murky, semi-toxic ales in the cantinas, they discussed everything from their aches and pains to poorly thought out political opinions to the latest installments to their favorite holodramas. It had been a long time, however, since they'd had a reason to comment on a newcomer to the port city. Usually, it was the same throng of traders and smugglers over and over again, here today and gone tomorrow.

This particular newcomer was quite interesting, insisted every being who'd ever encountered a clone in their travels before. Aside from the novelty of a sentient that had once had the same face as a million others during the height of the Clone Wars, it simply didn't make sense—clones were _soldiers_. They'd either died or remained in the Imperial Forces, no exceptions. The idea of one of these manufactured warriors was making his way around town, the very _picture_ of a common civilian, seemingly up to nothing other than constructing a pourstone roof on the old Lasat lady's home, was utterly baffling. Theories varied greatly in their believability and amount of hostility towards the new fixture in their lives, but everyone seemed to have some kind of opinion.

_"He's a spy from the ISB, looking to infiltrate Jabba's syndicate!"_

_"Naw, he's here to look for smugglers."_

_"He's not a clone at all, he stole a clone's face to make himself more anonymous!"_

_"He_ is _a clone, but he's got—what's it called? Amnesty?" ("Amnesia?" "Yeah, that.")_

_"He's a Jedi Knight in disguise, on the run!"_ __

_"Ey, man's gotta eat, there ain't nothin' shifty about it. He's a nice bloke, quiet."_

_"Do you think he'd be able to fix my roof?"_

\----- 

Cody fell into the routine of life in Mos Espa much more easily than he thought he would. He rose early most days, so he could work outside before noon brought the full strength of the sun down on his neck. His skin darkened past its usual olive tone, but he'd never been prone to burning.

After lunch, he worked inside the house, fixing ancient, sand-clogged appliances. For the first few days, he only did this for Madj, but when word got out that she had a handyman on call who wasn't going to steal _osik_ from their houses (which was apparently a big problem), Madj's neighbors, particularly the older ones, started calling on him to fix their stoves and speeders and generators. He accepted only small amounts of money and food for his labor—Cody felt strange accepting payment from people who he could have easily been ordered to kill not even three weeks ago. He also decidedly wasn't a professional mechanic. They didn't seem to mind though.

He occasionally ran errands for Madj, who was often busy trading her carefully crafted fabric goods with neighboring port cities or mending garments, so he became familiar with the unique energy of Mos Espa, so unlike life in the military, or on Kamino, or in the Core. He'd always imagined Tatooine to be Hutt-infested and incredibly unsavory—and parts of it were—but the reality was so much more accommodating and vibrant. The markets were always busy, the people were straightforward, if not especially kind—with the exception of Madj, of course, who was clearly a saint for allowing him to continue to camp out on the cushions in her living room. She'd offered to make him a mattress, but he'd insisted that this was actually one of the more comfortable places he'd ever slept, which was perfectly true.

Cody had accepted her offer of making him a few tunics and pairs of trousers after it became clear that he couldn't live in the remaining elements of his officers' uniform forever. The next evening, with the uniform in hand, he set out for the outskirts of town in a soft umber colored shirt, black pants, and new boots. He expertly constructed a little pyre of sticks and used a match to light it.

Once the fire was blazing, he tossed the uniform in, one wretched piece at a time. He did the jacket last. His rank insignia took the longest to burn, bubbling and curling in on itself sickeningly before blackening and melting into a solid, foul-smelling lump of plastoid. The metal backing remained unsatisfyingly intact. Cody buried it all in the sand.

He sat by the ashes for a while, leaning back on his hands, looking up at the star-filled sky. He searched for the sky for the planet's three moons, but only found two of them, on opposite horizons, observing each other from afar.

\----- 

_Obi-Wan Kenobi sat perched on a rock just outside their encampment, surveying the richly forested terrain of the planet. The troops were taking a much-needed break that evening, and they'd taken the opportunity to light up the night with a spectacular campfire and were roasting foraged snacks on sticks. Obi-Wan would have joined them, but he always worried that he raised the anxiety level of the men whenever he hovered. They deserved not to feel like their commanding officer was breathing down their necks. Obi-Wan was perfectly content to spend his evening in silent reflection._

_"Sir, you're welcome to come join us if you like." Obi-Wan is jerked out of his reverie by the low voice of his commander, who had snuck up behind him. Cody's Force presence was so uniquely comfortable in Obi-Wan's mind that he often didn't notice the other man when he approached him, which was somewhat embarrassing. He hid this behind a smile as he turned to his commander._

_"I wouldn't want to intrude..."_

_"You wouldn't be," his commander asserted. "I like...the men like it when you join us. They like your stories." He rubbed the back of his neck self-consciously, something Obi-Wan had noticed he did quite often when not wearing his helmet._

_"Well, in that case—" Obi-Wan got up and slid into step beside Cody, who led them back to the roaring bonfire around which the 212th was gathered, chatting and laughing. They were greeted enthusiastically, and Obi-Wan suspected someone was passing around a bottle of something stronger than water. Then, the requests started._

_"Sir, will you tell us more about_ Manda'yaim _?" Wooley asked, eyes wide and expectant._

_"What about that time on Concordia when you were protecting the duchess and—"_

_"Crys, he just told that one the other day!" Someone interrupted in exasperation._

_"But it's so_ cool _!" Crys retorted defensively. Obi-Wan grinned._

_"There's time for more than one story," he interjected on Crys' behalf, ignoring the sniff of amusement from Cody._

_"Always the negotiator."_

_"Always, my dear commander."_

Ben Kenobi woke up with the smell of wood smoke in his nose and a tightness in his chest.

\-----

A month after his eventful trip to Mos Espa, Ben visited the port city again. He didn't bother to lie to himself—he was there to see if somehow, inexplicably, Cody was still on Tatooine.

The answer was a resounding _yes,_ as part of him had known it would be.

He'd skulked along the streets near Madj's home for only an hour or so before catching a glimpse of him, seemingly negotiating a trade with a Rodian merchant. There was no sign of his officer's uniform—he could have been anyone.

Ben made himself unnoticeable and went a little closer.

He carefully studied his former commander, taking in his appearance more than he'd allowed himself to when he'd healed the man a month ago.. His aging seemed to have slowed to an average rate for a human—apart from the grey scattered evenly throughout his hair and his lack of armor, he didn't look too different from when Ben had known him all those years ago. Ben had been worried about that, though he supposed accelerated aging really only made sense at the beginning of life. _And clones were never expected to survive the war anyway_ , he thought, his chest tightening unpleasantly.

When Cody finished his transaction and turned down the street. Ben didn't follow. Instead, he wandered toward the nearest cantina to grab a bite to eat before catching a late-night sandcrawler ride home.


	6. Problematic Road Trip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cody follows a hunch, then promptly gets lost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the record, I'm fully aware that my distances/travel times don't exactly...work all the time per se, but can we pretend that they all make perfect sense? Plot reasons. Just don't think about it too hard.
> 
> Also, for those of you who are suffering: real actual conversations between The Boys next chapter! I promise. Will post very soon.

Cody wondered if it was possible that he'd sustained brain damage in addition to his numerous other injuries when he'd crashed in the surprisingly forgiving sands of Tatooine.

He'd been eating dinner after nightfall, sitting up on the newly-constructed roof of Madj's home, watching people stagger home after long days of work—or a long day at the cantina, in some cases—when a hooded figure had caught his eye. He watched them weave silently in the darkness through the narrow side streets towards the edge of town. When the figure turned his head slightly and a porch light illuminated his shrouded face in golden hues, Cody felt his stomach drop all the way from the roof to the opposite hemisphere of the desert planet.

If he hadn't gotten such a good look, he would have told himself that it was a trick of the night. But, no—he was quite certain that he'd seen General Kenobi, appearing just as he had in Cody's dream. He knew in his gut that it was his _jetii_ , just as surely that he knew that his _jetii_ was dead.

Cody watched him until he was too far away to see in the darkness. Cody had picked up that _damn_ robe more times and on more planets than he could count, he'd know it anywhere, even when it was impossible.

He rubbed his eyes. Maybe he just needed some sleep. Rest didn't come easily for Cody, even after a long day of work.

\-----

The next morning, Cody watched Madj pack up some things to trade in the neighboring city of Mos Entha and deliberated.

Finally, he made up his mind, and cleared his throat. The Lasat stopped and looked at him. Cody suddenly felt foolish, but he pressed on. He had to start somewhere.

"Um..."

"Out with it, son. I've got places to be."

"Do you know anyone named Obi-Wan Kenobi?" He forced the words out in a rush. The Lasat's yellow eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly.

"Afraid not." Cody let out a breath he'd been holding. His shoulders sagged slightly, then he felt ashamed for allowing himself to get his hopes up.

"But I know a Ben Kenobi, if that helps ya," she added after a moment of silence. Cody stared. He _knew_ that name. Granted, it was a pretty common name—that was why they'd chosen it—but it was still too much of a coincidence. Ben Kenobi was the name General Kenobi had used for undercover operations during the Clone Wars. He'd used it over a dozen times before it became recognizable. Still, he couldn't be sure.

"What does he look like?" Madj was definitely looking at him suspiciously now. She started carefully packing a stack of colorful quilts, and gave him an answer that made him think she knew more about this Ben Kenobi than she was going to tell him.

"Well, the Jawas think he's a witch, and the Tuskens think he's some sort of prophetic demon. He lives about halfway between here and everywhere else; middle of nowhere. Sort of an eccentric hermit type. Wouldn't mess with him, if I were you." Cody suppressed a snort. That sounded about right. He allowed silence to fall.

"Pass me that ration bar, would ya?" Cody handed it to her automatically, lost in thought.

"I might have to go somewhere for a bit. But I'll be back."

"Make sure ya take enough water. Ain't much around for travelers, and ya can't drink the mists." Cody nodded.

"Thanks."

\-----

Madj made her way toward Mos Entha, wondering if she'd done right by her friend by telling Cody about him. She'd been as vague as she could be. It had felt important that her house guest know of Ben's existence—perhaps it had something to do with the haunted look on Ben's face all those weeks ago that hadn't lined up with the healing of a random Imperial officer. She'd lived through the Clone Wars—she knew what Cody was, and she knew that before the Empire, legions of clones like him had served under the command of the Jedi.

Madj wasn't sure what that meant for the two men, but she had a feeling that whatever was going to happen would happen with or without her assistance. She sighed. It was out of her hands now, and in those of the Ashla.

\-----

After two days of camping out in the desert, Cody started to suspect that he might be lost.

He inspected his map of the Northern Hemisphere. He'd been heading due south at first, then had veered east—or at least, that's what he thought he'd been doing. His ground navigation must be pretty damn rusty.

He groaned. It could be worse, really—he had plenty of water and rations. Mostly it was just frustrating. Cody had worked with General Kenobi for years, and in that time he'd gotten to know how the _jetii_ thought—or didn't think, as the case sometimes was. Armed with that information and some research regarding trade routes, settlements, and Tatooine's rough terrain, Cody had determined, with some confidence, approximately where his general would be likely to set up a long-term base. It had almost been fun to puzzle out likely locations—he'd felt as though General Kenobi was whispering hints right into his mind.

It would have to be somewhere easy for one person to defend, perhaps flanked by hazardous terrain. Somewhere he could access a trade route, but wouldn't be on top of one. Somewhere remote, but no more than a day's journey from civilization. All in all, there weren't too many places that fit all the requirements, but Cody wasn't coming across any of them in person. Just a kriff-ton of sand, stretching on for miles. He was grateful for the short hooded cloak that Madj had foisted on him before she left.

Night began to fall, and Cody was starting to consider making camp when he heard a piercing child's scream in the distance. He snapped to alert, staring in the direction of the sound. Not far to the east, he could see a group of figures struggling—five tall, one very short. He sprinted towards them, and as he drew closer he could see that a woman and a child had been pulled out of their old landspeeder by four tall beings, armed to the teeth, wearing layers of brown robes and elaborate masks. Tusken Raiders, he figured.

Cody wasn't armed. He didn't need to be.

The Tuskens clearly weren't expecting anyone to interrupt them. He decked the one holding the kid before they could so much as look around. When two more came at him with daggers, too close to fire their rifles, he knocked their slashes away easily before felling the first one with a sharp kick to the solar plexus. The second one caught Cody's punch, but he slipped away easily and kicked them again in the head instead. They dropped like a stone.

In that time, the woman had struggled free from the fourth assailant and landed a blow of her own. At length, the Tuskens gathered themselves and sprinted away toward their speeders. Cody watched them go, then looked to the woman and her child. She was young, pretty and round-faced. Cody wasn't good at guessing ages, not being very familiar with the aging process of children, but he'd say the kid was probably between five and eight years old, with a shaggy head of straw-colored hair.

"Are you hurt?"

"No, we're fine. Those sand people...I knew we should have stayed one more night in Bestine and left in the morning. Thank you so much for your help, uh.." she looked at him expectantly. She was very out of breath, clearly struggling to come down off the adrenaline of being attacked.

"Cody."

"Thank you, Cody. I'm Beru, this is my nephew, Luke."

"Nice to meet you," Cody said evenly, nodding to each. The kid, Luke, was fixing him with an intense blue-eyed stare. After a moment, he beamed toothily at Cody.

"You fight so good!" Cody grinned.

"Thanks, kid." Beru smiled down at her nephew, then looked back at Cody.

"Are you headed to Bestine?" She asked him.

"Ah, not exactly. I think I might be lost." He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. Then he pulled out his map, where the area of land he thought might contain General Kenobi was circled. He handed it to Beru, whose eyes widened slightly when she saw where he was going.

"You've gone much too far east, but it's only a couple hours away by speeder. We can take you some of the way, if you like." Cody wanted to say no, but he was tired and not especially keen on sleeping out in the desert again.

"I would appreciate that."

There were only two seats, but Luke folded himself up on the center console in a way that suggested he was used to squeezing in the middle. Lulled by the hum of the landspeeder, Cody dozed.

A few hours later, Beru poked him awake and pointed to a reddish, moonlit ridge on the horizon.

"Follow the edge of the Wastes there. He lives just around that ridge. It's the only house out here, you can't miss it." Cody thanked her profusely and climbed out of the speeder. As he watched them glide away, he realized that he hadn't actually told Beru that he was going to see anyone.


	7. So We Meet Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben doesn't shoot anyone; Cody doesn't get shot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all I swear on my LIFE I didn't intend for them to be apart for this long. It just happened like this. I truly can't believe we are 10,000 words and seven chapters in and the boys haven't had a non-flashback conversation yet. I'm so sorry. But, if you're reading this, you made it! Congrats! Thank you for...sticking with me. This chapter took me for-fucking-ever to write, and I'm not sure I'm happy with it, but sometimes you just gotta...stop poking it for a bit.

Ben was awoken by the Force tickling his senses gently. Something was approaching. He reached out, but it was still too far away to tell specifically what it was. It didn't seem particularly malevolent, though some dangerous things didn't. There was a different breed of ill-intent for every entity in the galaxy.

He stared unseeingly at the ceiling for about half an hour, debating whether he should retrieve his rifle. Ben hated the thing, like he hated all blasters, but a lightsaber was a risky weapon to be waving around for obvious reasons. If he got up now, he could get to a sniping position and wait until whatever it was came into the visible range.

Finally, the mysterious attention refocused away from him. Ben waited to see if it would return, and when it didn't, he drifted back to sleep.

\-----

Cody had gotten to the foot of the bluffs and was about to start making his way around the rocky ridges between him and, possibly, his general's house when a thought occurred to him.

If he lived in hiding, alone, on a somewhat seedy planet, and someone he wasn't expecting approached his house in the dead of night, he would shoot them first and ask questions later. He didn't think General Kenobi would do that, but...six years in exile would undoubtedly change a person, and he knew without a doubt that if his _jetii_ did try to shoot him, he wouldn't miss. There was also the chance that it wouldn't be General Kenobi at all, and he'd been on a wild bantha chase this whole time.

Cody made camp on the outskirts of the Jundland Wastes. It was only a few more hours until morning, and Cody would happily wait if it decreased the likelihood of being sniped.

\-----

Once the suns had risen to a respectable height in the sky, Cody resumed his trek. It took much longer than he expected to make it around the ridge, but once he did, he knew without a doubt that he was in the right place.

Nestled between massive boulders and sheltered by a rocky overhang was a small, rectangular stone house with a domed roof. It was so well camouflaged from his angle that if Cody hadn't been looking for it, he was sure he would have missed it. He approached directly, trying not to seem like he was sneaking up on the house. If it was where his general lived, though, he'd know he was there already—had, perhaps, known all night.

Cody walked around the house to the plasteel door and knocked. The sound was deafening in the silence. He could hear his own heartbeat in his chest. When there was no reply after a minute, he knocked again.

"Looking for someone?" Cody whirled around. And there he was, looking...well, utterly normal. Apart from the hair. Pale, crystalline eyes glinted at him, mischievous, even as the general kept his face impassive.

Cody had a thousand things to say, but for the life of him the only thing he could keep in his useless head was a mantra of _kaysh oyayc, kaysh oyayc, kaysh oyayc_ —he's alive, he's alive, he's alive. To his utter dismay, Cody's eyes started to sting. He told himself it was just the sun. He took a deep, shaking breath to steady himself—his jetii had asked him a question, though he seemed perfectly happy to let the silence stretch as Cody parsed his feelings.

"Uh. General."

"A general? There aren't any generals out here, I'm afraid." Cody supposed that was fair. They were about as far from the GAR as they could be, and calling his gen— _Kenobi_ a general was decidedly a misnomer.

No, this was Ben Kenobi. Cody tried again.

"Ben." Ben smiled, full and bright, and Cody's heart fluttered in his chest. Even when everything else had changed, Ben Kenobi was still the most beautiful person Cody had ever seen. Whatever dam had been constructed in Cody's mind started to give way, and all the feelings he'd stored up in the back of his mind for the past few weeks began to come forward. He dropped his pack in the sand and pulled the smaller man into his arms.

He'd never really embraced the _jetii,_ but it still felt like coming home. Cody buried his face in his shoulder. He smelled like tea and sunlight.

" _Ni ceta, ni ceta_ —" The words were muffled by Ben's robe. Cody had never said them to anyone before, but he'd also never felt the need to be forgiven as acutely as he did then. "As soon as I woke up... I couldn't believe it. I thought I'd killed you. I wanted to die—thought that I deserved—" Cody felt arms wrap around him, and he failed to suppress a half-gasp, half-sob. "And then I saw you, and I couldn't believe that either. I'm sorry— _ni ceta_ —I had to find you. You can send me away if you want to, I'll do anything—I'm just glad you're alive." The arms around him tightened, and Cody pressed closer. 

"It's alright, you're okay. We're okay. It wasn't you, I know it wasn't." Ben soothed in his Coruscanti accent that was just as lilting and posh as Cody remembered. He drank the words in, allowing himself to feel the absolution, even though he didn't entirely think he deserved it.

They stood that way for a long moment. When Cody pulled away, Ben's slightly red eyes made him feel better about the wetness under his own.

"Come inside?" Ben asked softly. Cody nodded. He allowed himself to be led across the threshold into the house.

The inside reminded Cody, jarringly, of the man's quarters aboard the _Negotiator._ Not in layout, as the house was larger and clearly meant for long-term habitation, but in contents. There was a radio and an empty teacup on the small dining room table by the east-facing window, with the kettle on the stove in the kitchenette behind it. There were strange artifacts on a display table near the door—presumably things Ben had found around Tatooine. There were also books—real books, heavy and bound, scattered on the dining and coffee tables, shelved against wall, nestled in the blankets on the half-made bed, which was tucked into an alcove where it seemed to double as a couch. If Cody hadn't known Ben, he'd have thought the _jetii_ was doing a research project. But no, he was just like that.

Ben slunk around him and walked to the kitchen, where he lit the fire under the kettle and retrieved two teacups from a cupboard.

"Please, make yourself at home," he said, when he turned back to Cody and found him still standing by the door, taking everything in, cataloging. He wanted to remember everything about this place, just in case.

Finally, he took a seat in a chair beside the coffee table and leaned his pack up against the chair beside him. He picked up the book closest to him. _Etymology of Jawaese: From the Kumumgah to Today's Dialects._

"I could recommend some more entertaining reads than that, if you're interested," Ben appeared at Cody's shoulder with a cup of tea, which he accepted.

"Sure," Cody replied. "If you've got some you can spare..." Ben grinned.

"Maybe one or two."

Ben brushed past him and sat on the bed to Cody's right and folded his legs underneath himself neatly, his posture upright. Picture-perfect. Cody watched him gently blow on his own tea, then asked the first question that popped into his head, which was almost never the best question to go with.

 _"Me'vaar ti gar?" How are you?_ It was so woefully insufficient and acknowledged so little of the depth of his concern for his friend that Cody actually winced. The _jetii_ exhaled sharply—not quite a laugh, not quite a sigh.

"I'm alright," he replied slowly, deliberately. "Better, I think, than I was at first. It was...hard for me to adjust to life out here. The...the Order...well, suffice it to say I'd never really lived alone before." Cody knew the feeling. He felt another stab of regret. He should have _been here_ —doing what, he had no idea, but he should have been here anyway. Ben should never have had to be alone if he didn't want to be.

"Why here?" He asked. Cody didn't mind Tatooine, but he'd spent a lot of time thinking about it and he really couldn't fathom why Ben would have picked this planet specifically. There were plenty of other worlds where the Empire wouldn't be likely to get a foothold for some time.

"It's a tedious story, and one I'm not sure I want to get in to at the moment. There is a reason though. A sort of...extended mission, if you will. I'll be here indefinitely." Cody nodded. Fair enough. "What about you?"

"I'll be here for as long as you are," Cody replied with confidence. Ben's eyes widened slightly, searching Cody's face for...something. Cody flushed. "Well, not _here_ , here, of course. Unless you want me to be here. But I meant...Tatooine." He hadn't meant Tatooine.

"Cody," Ben leaned forward slightly, his blue gaze soft and sad. "You know you don't have to be here. You can do whatever you want, go wherever you want. Well—" he paused, and his voice took on an uncharacteristically bitter tone. " _Almost_ anywhere."

"My point is, you shouldn't feel obligated to stay for me. You could have a life somewhere." _You are my life_ , Cody didn't say. He also didn't say that he'd tried life without him around and Cody could say with certainty that it _sucked._

"Madj has got me doing some housework, and now I'm helping out some of the neighbors too. I like the work, it's simple. Easy." It wasn't really a direct reply, but it was as much of one as Ben was going to get.

"My turn—when you healed me, why didn't you stay?" Cody could hear the subtle, unintended accusation in his own voice.

"I wasn't sure if what I'd been successful in removing the chip. It was...messy. I thought you might not want to see me, to say the least." Cody recoiled slightly, _baffled_ by the inanity of that assumption.

"You thought that _I_ ," he paused for dramatic effect, a trick he learned from the man who was sitting in front of him, "wouldn't want to see _you_?" Ben had the decency to look somewhat sheepish. He dipped his head slightly, and all Cody's frustration evaporated when a long, wavy, copper-colored strand of hair fell forward into Ben's face. Cody's fingers twitched on his teacup.

\-----

Ben hadn't exactly been surprised when Cody had shown up on his doorstep that morning.

That said, he hadn't expected his former commander to be so pleased to see him. When he'd snuck up behind Cody at the front door (he'd been meditating outside when the other man had made his approach), the wave of relief he'd felt from the other man had been overwhelming, almost like being hit with a physical impact— then again, Ben hadn't exactly had many intense emotions directed at him over the past few years. It was bound to take some getting used to.

He also hadn't expected to be hugged, and so when Cody had wrapped him in his strong arms, he couldn't help but melt into them. Ben later reflected that he could not remember the last time anyone had hugged him. It had been known to happen, but it had been long enough that he'd forgotten what it felt like. Despite his flirting, he'd never considered himself a very tactile person—funny, how being alone in the desert for six years could change a person. He resolved to hug Cody more often in the future.

Once the two of them had exhausted their respective stores of questions for each other, Ben showed Cody to the refresher so he could clean up after his (no doubt unpleasant) nights of camping out in the desert. He took the opportunity to retrieve a few extra pillows from the basement. After that journey, there was no doubt that Cody would spend the night. Maybe two, if Ben was lucky—it had been barely an hour, and he'd already adjusted to Cody's sturdy and amiable Force-presence sitting comfortably in the corner of his mind, as it always had. He dreaded letting it go again, even though he knew he shouldn't. Jedi didn't dread things.

When Cody emerged from the refresher a few minutes later, he was wearing a fresh deep yellow tunic that reminded Ben with a pang of the 212th's gold armor paint. Following his gaze, Cody looked down and plucked at his sleeve.

"Madj made me a whole set. Weird, not having a uniform, isn't it?"

"I wouldn't know," Ben said with a chuckle. His 'uniform' was indistinguishable from most people's normal clothes, particularly out here. "Good old Madj."

"Are you two friends?"

"As much of a friend as I can afford to have," Ben replied. "But, yes." Cody looked at him silently with his somber brown eyes, expression unreadable.

"Ah—if you don't mind going back outside, I'd like to show you where the perimeter defenses are, up in the Wastes. You came 'round the desert side, but I have some traps set in the canyon, since I can't see people coming that way."

"Not even with the Force?"

"I've learned the hard way that the Force can blind as much as it can guide," he replied with a grimace. "And frankly, even if I knew someone was coming, I'd rather have one less attacker to deal with." He heard short huff of laughter from Cody as he followed Ben outside into the afternoon light of the suns.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn't exactly related to this chapter, but I did just post an illustration for this fic on my tumblr (romanmoray). It's tagged w/ the series name, I'll probably be doing more illustrations to go with it :)


	8. Eopie Sacrifices and Arrowheads

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben is an untapped reservoir of Tatooine Fun Facts (TM); Cody gets a present.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to say, as always, thank you so much to those of you commenting/leaving kudos—every one means so much to me! I love you all personally and it is so much more fun to write when I know y'all are out there. Thank you so much!

Cody was _immeasurably_ glad he didn't try to cut through the Jundland Wastes. Though most of Ben's traps probably wouldn't have killed him, he could have easily lost a few fingers or a leg, or at the very least ending up caught humiliatingly in a net until he was rescued, which would have made for an uncomfortable reunion.

The traps were cleverly constructed, efficient, and unlikely to be triggered accidentally by someone who wasn't making a direct approach on Ben's home. He said as much to the _jetii,_ who was perched on a rocky cliff face fifteen feet above him, showing him an elaborate mechanism of hidden rigging designed to hoist a would-be assailant up by the ankles. Ben beamed.

"I'm glad you approve!" He leapt down, landing soundlessly beside Cody. "If you have any suggestions, I'd be happy to hear them." Cody nodded, already compiling a list of ideas in his head.

Ben led Cody around "his" section of the Wastes, showing him the best routes through the treacherous terrain, including which plateaus of rock were stable and which were prone to crumbling.

"Just in case you need to know," Ben had said, smiling almost shyly.

Cody hadn't realized just how much he missed his _jetii_ until he could watch him spring playfully between boulders like some sort of strange mountain creature, excitedly lecturing him about the ancient people who'd once lived in the canyons. He got the distinct impression that Ben had missed having someone to share his many, many passions with, and Cody was more than happy to be the recipient of the vast sea of random cultural knowledge that the other man somehow managed to cram in his ginger-haired head.

"Sometimes, over here, you can find— _aha!"_ Ben knelt in a patch of sand a few meters away, then trotted back to Cody. He picked up Cody's hand from his side and pressed something smooth and hard into his palm. Then, he was off again, leaving Cody both caught off guard by the sudden proximity and feeling oddly bereft now that he was gone.

"Thank you," he said automatically, and Ben grinned at him over his shoulder.

He looked down at his palm—Ben had given him a hand-carved arrowhead, a little over two inches in length, made of a slightly darker and bluer stone than the reddish brown rocks that made up the canyons around them. It was dulled with age, but oddly shiny, as though it had been recently polished. There was a hole drilled into the base, presumably to attach it to an arrow shaft. Cody pocketed it and they walked on. Every few minutes, he reached into his pocket again to make sure it hadn't fallen out somehow.

It was evening by the time they headed back home. Ben guided them back along one of the higher ridges, and Cody watched appreciatively as the lights on the horizon melted from blue and gold to crimson and mauve. As they walked, Cody became aware of a strange sensation in his hand. It felt as though it was being touched lightly by some sort of phantom pressure, though Ben was a couple feet away, his own hands at his sides. Cody flexed his fingers slightly and the feeling diminished. Ben shot him a furtive glance.

"Sorry," he said, almost inaudibly. Cody had no idea what Ben could be apologizing for.

"Huh?"

"Oh—nothing." Cody frowned slightly, but didn't ask.

\-----

Ben shoved his embarrassment haphazardly into the Force. He hadn't realized he'd been reaching out for Cody in his mind until he'd caught the other man stretching his hand out of the corner of his eye. Ben resolved to focus on his control when he meditated—it was a symptom of a Force-user being alone for a long time, it became difficult at times to distinguish between oneself and others. It was one of the many things that made going into town overwhelming for Ben. The closeness he felt with the land around his home was one thing—he couldn't exactly make the desert _uncomfortable_ —but manipulating the Force around others was something that Jedi were trained from initiation to only do _deliberately_ , if they were going to do it at all. Mindlessly pulling on his friend's hand without even realizing he was doing it certainly did not qualify as a praiseworthy use of the Force.

When they arrived back home, they toed off their boots at the door. Ben hung his robe on a peg on the wall, then made his way into the small kitchen area to start making dinner.

Cody leaned up against the wall behind him as he worked. He could feel the other man's soft, unobtrusive attention through the Force. As he roasted vegetables and dried meats from the pantry together to create an approximation of a stir-fry, it occurred to Ben that he didn't know what Cody enjoyed eating—he'd have to ask for next time.

When he was done, he pulled two bowls down from a shelf with the Force, and held them there, hovering, as he filled them. _Show-off,_ Anakin's voice scoffed in his head. He ignored his inner Anakin and floated the bowls to the table with a flick of his wrist.

"So," Cody started after he'd downed two whole bowls of food faster than Ben could have imagined. "Madj mentioned that there were some...superstitions about you among the natives." Ben felt the corners of his mouth twitch.

"Indeed. They occasionally leave sacrifices on my doorstep—the Tuskens especially—it's both helpful and quite unsettling." Ben looked up at Cody and burst into laughter when he saw the expression on the other man's face.

"You're kidding."

"Unfortunately not. There was a flank of dried Eopie meat wrapped up in a tarp on the doorstep just last week, that was nice. Last month, though, they left black melons—they're these sort of egg shaped fruits—and those are absolutely disgusting." He wrinkled his nose at the memory. Cody's mouth opened, then closed sharply. Ben chuckled again.

"Why don't the traps get them?"

"Oh, the traps aren't meant for them—this is technically their land, after all. They know it so well, I doubt I could beat them on their own turf anyway," Ben paused thoughtfully. "And anyway, they aren't likely to attack their friendly neighborhood...what was it you said? Demon prophet?" Cody released a huff of laughter, then glanced to the side, brow furrowed, as though remembering something.

"On the way here, I ran in to some of them. The raiders. They were attacking—or, trying to rob, I suppose—this woman and her kid. I was...pretty lost," Cody said, looking abashed. "They drove me most of the way here after the raiders were gone." Ben's brow furrowed. There weren't many who could have directed Cody with any specificity to where he lived, unless he somehow wrested the information from the Jawas or the Tuskens themselves, which was unlikely to say the least.

"I don't suppose it was a young, dark-haired woman and her precocious blond nephew?" Cody raised an eyebrow.

"You know them?"

"You could say that."

"Another one of those stories for another time?"

"Quite," Ben sighed out, grateful for the escape route Cody had provided. He watched the other man try and fail miserably to stifle a yawn, and Ben figured it was time to turn in for the night.

"There are pillows and blankets that you can take wherever you want, but the bed would be more comfortable if you don't mind sharing. There's plenty of room."

"No, I don't mind." Ben wondered if he imagined Cody's cheeks darkening slightly as he spoke.

\-----

Cody slept far better than he thought he would that night. He'd thought the enticing warmth of the _jetii_ sleeping next to him would keep him awake all night, but instead he'd drifted off contentedly, listening to Ben's gentle breathing. For the first night in over a month, he dreamed of nothing at all.

He woke up only once, a couple hours before dawn, to find that one of them had threaded their fingers loosely together. Cody's sleep-fogged brain couldn't muster up the energy to be embarrassed about it, so he just adjusted his grip on Ben's hand to be more secure and promptly fell back asleep.

When Cody woke up again, it was morning. He reached blearily out for Ben, but his hand only found air—which was probably for the best. Cody wasn't sure what he would have done if he'd found the other man there, but he was sure he would have regretted it.

In fact, Ben was nowhere to be found in the house at all. Cody remembered him mentioning that he sometimes meditated outside, so he wandered outside into the pleasantly cool early-morning air. Sure enough, he spotted him sitting at the very edge of one of the higher bluffs, looking perfectly tranquil. He was quite far away, but Cody could still see the morning light shining on Ben's coppery hair, which he seemed to have untied at some point. It shifted hypnotically in the soft breeze. He allowed himself to stare for a moment longer before retreating into the house and setting about making two cups of tea.

\-----

When Ben returned back to himself after an hour of deep meditation, he looked around to find a cup of hot tea steaming to his right. He stared. How had he not noticed Cody approach him? _How had Cody even gotten up here with a cup of tea?_ Ben had to scale at least twenty feet of vertical rock to reach this spot, as well as use the Force to make a few of the necessary jumps. He picked up the cup and sipped it slowly. _Alderaanian._ He smiled.

Behind him, a ghostly laugh sounded softly.

"Oh, hush." Ben turned just in time to see the pale blue figure snap back out of existence. He must be a fool of awe-inspiring proportions, if his dead Master was emerging from the cosmos _just_ to laugh at him.

Ben sighed and swung his legs down to hang off the side of the cliff. He drank his perfect tea and looked out at the horizon, an endless sea of sand met by a distant, solid wall of pale blue.

He could get used to this.


	9. Habits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cody learns things about music and ghosts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Never got to Ben's POV this chapter—I'll be there for the next one though. I like writing Obi-Wan so much, but Cody's voice comes way more easily to me for some reason. 
> 
> In other news, I've finished writing this fic! I think. Should be twelve chapters—those will be coming out over the next couple days. I'm starting on part two, which will continue along the slow-burn pining journey except also with some ACTION! It'll be fun. And also Luke will be there. It could have all been in one story, but I wanted to break it up into arcs a bit, and also it makes it easier to move through time—the next fic will be about a year in the future, but because the boys are dumb, they will still be in pining mode. You know how it is.

Cody stayed with Ben for over a week. In that time, he learned several things about his _jetii._ These things fell into two distinct categories: they were either things that were different from when Cody had known him before, or entirely new things that Cody had never had a reason to know until he spent a week alone with the man doing, effectively, nothing.

The first and most overt of these (exciting, endearing) new Kenobi facts, which Cody believed fell into the former category, was one that he didn't know enough about the Force to truly explain. At first, Cody had thought that he was imagining things. They'd be walking together, like they had on that first day, and he'd feel a soft pressure on his hand or his arm, as though Ben was touching him, though the other man was always just out of arm's reach when it happened. Or, Ben would call to him from across the house and Cody would feel a phantom hand on his shoulder, or a gentle nudge against his side. It was so subtle, so unassuming that it if he were with anyone else, Cody might not even have noticed anything unusual was happening.

He hadn't thought much about it until, on the third day, he had left to reset a trap that had been triggered by an animal in the night. He'd been about five steps away from the house when he'd felt a sharp yank on his arm, like someone had taken his hand and pulled him back towards the house. The sensation had lasted only a second, but it was enough to make him stop and turn around.

Ben popped out of the plasteel front door, waving a water canteen, a light smile gracing his features.

"You forgot this!"

"Oh—thanks." Cody accepted the canteen automatically, and Ben disappeared back into the house, leaving him staring bemusedly at the door.

Cody was almost certain that Ben didn't know he was doing it. It was the sort of thing that he would have expected from someone more volatile and undisciplined, like Skywalker perhaps, but not from his own _jetii,_ who had always been so perfect, so controlled during the war. Before Tatooine, Cody could have counted on one hand the number of times that his general had used the Force _on_ him without explaining at length what he was doing, why he was doing it, and asking for Cody's permission. They had always been situations where Cody was seconds away from death without General Kenobi's interference. It was a stark contrast to the treatment that some of his _vod'e_ had endured at the hands of their generals.

Because of this, Cody figured that they should bother him, these little intrusions, but they didn't. He was sure that if he called attention to it, Ben would apologize profusely and it would never happen again. The thought made Cody's heart ache. So instead of mentioning it, Cody focused on not responding to the little Force-touches, so that Ben might remain oblivious to the occurrences.

\-----

Cody's second favorite Ben-related revelation was that any time the radio was on, Ben would hum along to the songs he knew, which turned out to be a ridiculous number of songs. His taste seemed to span all genres and decades, from ancient, soulful hymns of unknown origin to mournful Old Republic-era Bith operas to upbeat core drive hits. Cody made it his personal mission to make sure the radio was on whenever they were taking care of various chores around the house to coax out Ben's soft humming. He was far from tone-deaf, which really shouldn't have surprised Cody.

He'd been watching Ben organize his impressive library of books, wondering what it would take to get the other man to actually sing along, when the humming abruptly stopped and Ben turned to meet his gaze, holding a small stack of freshly-alphabetized novels.

"Does it bother you? I can stop," he asked, his cheeks slightly pink.

"No! Not at all," Cody replied, much too quickly. "I was just thinking—" Cody cut himself off. He probably shouldn't say what he was thinking. "Er. I was wondering what your favorite song was." _Close enough._

"Oh. Well, I'd have to think about that." He slid the books into place on the shelf and then paused again. Cody reflected that it was a mark of how times had changed, that the other man was standing in front of him, a hand on his chin, deeply considering his music preferences rather than which battle strategy would get the fewest of his men killed.

"I like a bit of everything, I suppose. Well, except perhaps Aridinian folk music, but I doubt anyone likes music that makes their ears bleed," Ben said with a laugh. "I suppose, if I had to pick, it would be music from my home planet."

"Coruscant?" That didn't narrow the field at all.

"No—Stewjon," Ben elaborated, turning back to his task. "I don't remember living there—I was taken to train at the Temple when I was very young, and I never went back. But I studied its culture while I was a Padawan, at the encouragement of my Master, and I've always had a fondness for the music."

It had never really occurred to Cody that, despite Ben's pronounced accent, he hadn't necessarily been born on Coruscant. It raised all sorts of other questions, but Cody didn't to delve into a topic that might make his friend uncomfortable. 

"Do they every play that on the radio?" Ben shook his head.

"Stewjon is a little...off the beaten track. Most of the music is only popular locally, not the sort of thing that gets played on the radio. In any case, a lot of my favorite stations vanished within the first few months," he sighed. "Blacklisted, by our gracious Empire."

Cody had rarely had a reason to work with the Empire's media division of the Commission for the Preservation of the New Order—they were what Commander Tano would have referred to as "allergic to fun," a phrase she'd used to describe numerous bureaucratic entities in the time of the Republic, many choice senators and Jedi Masters, and even Cody himself on more than one occasion.

"You know, I don't even know if the Kaminoans _had_ music," Cody mused. Ben chuckled.

"I have no idea," he said. "But Mandalore certainly does. Excellent poetry, too. Here." Cody looked up just in time to see a book flying toward him, which he caught deftly. The cover proudly announced that it was a compilation of poems and traditional songs—the sort of thing Jango Fett had read to him and his _vod'e_ on the rare occasion that he took it upon himself to entertain his clones. It was a beautiful book—bound in blood red leather, with gold embossed Mando'a lettering on the covers and spine, which Cody traced thoughtfully.

"You should keep that," Ben said, expression oddly distant.

"You sure?"

"Of course," he replied, seeming to come back to himself with a smile. "I have it memorized, anyway." _Of course he did._

_\-----_

The only bad thing that Cody learned—well, potentially bad thing—was that every once in a while, Ben seemed to have a protracted conversation with someone who decidedly _wasn't there._

Cody was familiar with the habit of talking to oneself. It wasn't something he'd ever done, but he knew it was something people, particularly people who spent a lot of time alone, were prone to do. That was not what was happening here.

It usually happened when Ben was meditating. Ben would go up to his cliff in the early morning, and when Cody woke up and made tea, he'd climb up to join him. About every other day, as he climbed, he'd start to hear the voice of his _jetii_ drifting down to him. More often than not, he sounded mildly irritated. He was clearly responding to someone, having a conversation—but there was never anyone around to be talking to. The conversation always ceased before Cody reached the flat rock at the peak of the bluff. He was worried that the many years of isolation had taken more of a toll on Ben than he'd initially thought.

Then again, maybe it was some weird Force thing that Cody didn't understand. But how could the Force facilitate a conversation with someone who couldn't possibly be anywhere near their desert home? As Cody understood it, it was one thing to send messages to someone using the Force—he'd seen Kenobi and Skywalker do that on numerous occasions. This was different. 

On the morning of his last full day before he planned to return to Mos Espa—he needed to check on Madj before she sent out a search party for him—he performed his routine as usual. He climbed about three quarters of the way up to Ben's meditation spot. Feeling immeasurably guilty, he stopped to listen. He was too far away to catch everything, but he could hear a bit. Ben would say something, then there would be a few beats of silence, then he'd say something else in "response."

"—can't ask that of him, you know that."

"Easy for you to say." His tone was exasperated, not dissimilar from the voice he used when he spoke with Skywalker.

"Don't be absurd."

"Well, maybe I should!"

"Why do you care so much, anyway? The cosmos must be awfully boring if you're coming here to be my...problematic life coach. Although, I suppose that was always your role."

"And we all know how _that_ turned out."

"I know." Cody heard Ben heave an exaggerated sigh. _"I know."_

Cody had heard enough. He scrambled up the last few meters and pulled himself, one-handed because of the tea, up onto the rock. As usual, Ben looked as though nothing was out of the ordinary—his eyes were closed, his face relaxed. Cody put the teacup down at his knee and sat down beside him. Ben had assured him that Cody's presence did not interrupt his concentration, though that wasn't something Cody was worried about at the moment.

"Who were you talking to?" He finally made himself ask. To his surprise, Ben's ice-colored eyes opened immediately and he released a huff of vexation.

"An _idiot,_ " he replied emphatically. _Well._ Ben glanced over at Cody and his gaze softened. He shifted his weight slightly. "Sorry." Cody just stared back, waiting for Ben to decide what he wanted to tell him.

"Soon after I arrived here, Master Yoda began to appear to me in visions. I'd been spending so much time meditating...in the beginning, it was nearly all I did. He taught me how to, well, for lack of a better way to explain it, communicate with Jedi who have passed into the Cosmic Force."

"So...you're talking to a dead person?" This conversation was not going _at all_ like Cody had expected it would.

"Essentially, yes. My Master, Qui-Gon Jinn. He died several years before the Clone Wars, at the end of my training." Ben had never liked to talk about his former Master—Cody had gotten the sense that the memory of his death was somewhat traumatic for his _jetii._

"And he is...was...an idiot?" Ben's face cycled rapidly between fondness and exasperation.

"At times, certainly." Cody took a moment to process all of that. Ben picked up his tea and took a sip, closing his eyes as he did so. Cody caught himself watching the other man's throat as he swallowed and yanked his gaze away.

"I thought you might be losing it," Cody finally admitted, staring fixedly out at the sandy, oddly featureless horizon. Ben laughed, and the sound pulled at the corners of Cody's mouth.

"Trust me, my dear Cody, if I 'lose it', you'll know."


	10. Reflections

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben visits some relics from his past; Cody briefly takes up jewelry design.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for any weird formatting mistakes in this chapter, I had to post in a rush! Hope it's okay.

Ben's good mood persisted long after he'd seen Cody off. He helped his friend get a ride on the early morning sandcrawler to Mos Espa (pointedly ignoring a Jawa's hushed comment of "oh no, not another one" as he'd negotiated Cody's passage) and wrote out the trade routes and schedules on Cody's map so he could return without having to walk alone down the Xelric Draw again. He also phonetically scribbled out a few Jawaese phrases that were helpful to know on the back as an afterthought, prompting a small smile from his friend.

"I'll be back soon?" Cody said, halfway up the ramp of the sandcrawler, looking comically tall next to all the little hooded figures of Jawas milling around him. The statement curled slightly in uncertainty.

"You'd better," Ben replied, unable to resist a flirtatious smirk. "You wouldn't want me to get lonely out here, would you?" Cody's warm eyes flitted downwards self-consciously, but he smiled lopsidedly, making his scar twist like rising smoke.

" _K'oyacyi, Kote._ " Ben bid him farewell as the ramp began to rise. He heard Cody's answering farewell, which echoed metallically inside the tank-like structure, just before it sealed itself up. With a grinding roar its engines came to life and it started to roll north. Ben watched it go, kicking up sand with its massive treads, before making his way back home.

Ben was sure that Cody would be back soon. The night before, he'd said in no uncertain terms that the other man was welcome to spend as much time out here as he wanted. He'd even pressed his spare key on Cody, who'd looked at the thing like it was made of gold rather than some cheap alloy.

" _Ret'lini,_ " he'd said. _Just in case._

It hadn't surprised Ben that the days Cody spent with him were without question the most tranquil days he'd had in years. He fit in like he'd been there the whole time. Ben figured that made sense—there had been a time when tens of thousands of lives had depended on the two of them being in sync and working well together—and they always had. Cody had offered a much-needed grounding weight to Ben's messy life and the many flavors of chaos that it provided for him, and even though his days had slowed to a crawl and most of the excitement in his life didn't involve life-or-death situations, he still needed that reassuring presence.

He'd _missed_ Cody, damn it, as much if not more than he missed all the others that he'd lost all those years ago. He knew that Cody had missed him too, from the way that he'd easily fallen back into his old routine of providing tea at regular intervals and the way he'd _radiated_ contentment when they took walks through the Wastes and Ben rambled (boringly, he was sure) about the tribal history of Tatooine and the way he'd periodically glance up from reading one of Ben's books when he thought Ben wasn't looking, expression soft, seemingly just to check that he was still there.

It was such a simple thing, to feel cared for, and yet so unfamiliar to Ben Kenobi.

And so, as soon as he got home, Ben set about reorganizing some things. He shuffled his spare clothes and robes around until there was an empty storage chest available, and cleared a shelf of various debris so that upon Cody's return, he'd have plenty of space to leave things that he wanted to keep here.

As he was rummaging through one of his trunks, Ben's hands found the fragmented parts of his lightsaber, wrapped in a brown fabric, along with the components to Anakin's saber. He took them out, laying them in order of assembly on the stone floor beneath him. His kyber crystal, still in its housing, resonated consolingly with his mind when he held it. It had been so long since he'd last wielded the blade, but even now he could feel the Force extending out from himself and through its parts, ready to be slotted back together again. He carefully placed the crystal and its housing in the center of the line of components.

The parts of Anakin's lightsaber were less responsive to him when he arranged them alongside his own. Anakin's kyber crystal seemed to stare resolutely at him through the Force when he touched it—not unfriendly, just...wary. Ben smiled, bittersweet, allowing himself to remember the powerful, righteous Knight who'd used this lightsaber—and not the darkness that came after.

No, this saber's master was gone—but it had a new master, not far away.

Ben considered, as he had been considering for years, that Luke's training should have been underway long ago. He could feel Luke's powers growing through the Force, a distant but vivid beacon, and soon it would become dangerous to allow him to remain untrained. The havoc a child with a mere fraction of Anakin's innate ability could wreak if he did not learn to control his gifts... At the very least, it posed a risk, as any remotely Force-sensitive being passing through the planet would undoubtedly sense Luke's presence.

The boy's uncle had been adamant that Luke would not be trained, "for his own safety." Ben had been forced to bite down the counter that not all Jedi were as chaotic as Owen Lars' half-brother had been, and in fact his reluctance to allow Ben to train Luke was more likely to push the boy in Anakin's direction than not. It had been a mistake on Ben's part to say the truth of what happened to Anakin—he should have said that he was dead, and left it at that.

Perhaps he would make another attempt to speak with the Lars' soon. He thought he might be able to get Beru on his side, and he was also certain that one uncontrolled Force-related incident would send both of them to him for a solution. Ben just hoped that no one would get hurt in the process.

Sighing, Ben folded the lightsaber components securely back into their wrappings and replaced them in the bottom of the trunk. It may not be time for those yet, but he could still brush up on his basics for when the time came.

\-----

It was late by the time Cody arrived at Madj's house, but the Lasat was awake, weaving something rapidly. She looked up when he entered, her luminous yellow eyes inquisitive.

"Thought ya might not be comin' back," she said. Her tone was teasing, but there was an edge to it. Cody wondered what she thought he'd been doing out there. "Didja find what you were lookin' for?"

"I did," Cody replied. "Thanks for your help."

"Ben still hangin' on to his sanity? Always suspected he'd knock a few screws loose up there, with nothin' but sand and sand bats for company." Nothing got past her, it would seem.

"He's..." Cody hesitated. "He's really not that different, to be honest."

Madj's dry chuckles followed him to the refresher. He splashed some lukewarm water on his face.

_"Here, take this," Ben had said, handing Cody something small but heavy. A key. Cody stared at it._

_"Are you sure?" He could hear the awe in his own voice as he held the key delicately, as though it might break apart in his fingers._

_"Of course I'm sure," Ben asserted. Cody could feel those pretty blue eyes on him, but he didn't look up to meet them. "You're always welcome here. I..." Ben trailed off, and Cody finally met his eyes. Yep, still pretty and blue._

_"I like having you around," Ben finished finally. Not for the first time, Cody wished he could sense people in the way his_ jetii _could. He didn't want to read the other man's mind, that would be weird—but he'd give anything to be able to interpret some of Ben's more inexplicable expressions._

Cody's reflection gave him a long-suffering expression. His enduring crush on his former general would have to stay in check if they were going to be living together for an ambiguous percentage of the time. Cody really didn't want to kark this up—with feelings, of all things. He could almost hear Rex's laughter at his expense ringing in his ears. His _vod'ika_ had always been sympathetic to Cody's plight, but that hadn't stopped him from tormenting Cody when the opportunity presented itself. It had been a novelty for Rex and the batchmates that Cody had confided in, he supposed—the no-nonsense, highly-ranked, generally-feared Commander Cody, laid low by the endless charms and handsome face of his own lunatic _jetii._

When he returned to living room to sleep, Madj was gone, but the pillows were arranged for him. As he walked past where Madj had been working, Cody spotted a length of thin leather cord discarded on the floor. He picked it up and sat down, then pulled out the arrowhead that Ben had given him over a week ago. It had stayed in Cody's pocket the whole time, where Cody could fiddle with it absent-mindedly.

He spent several minutes securing the arrowhead on the cord. He knotted it several times, then hung it around his neck. It lay cool and soothing against his chest, next to his heart.

It took Cody a long time to fall asleep that night, despite the exhaustion from travelling, and when he woke up the next morning he found himself reaching for a slender-fingered hand that was miles away.


	11. Jealous-tea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben engages in tea-related discourse; Cody repeatedly ends up in awkward social situations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was fun to write, haha. The Boys are so dumb.

Over the next couple months, Ben and Cody fell into a comfortable routine. They didn't talk about it, not really—it evolved organically. Cody spent most of his time out in the desert with Ben, and once a week he would go into town to work, either alone or with Ben. Between Cody's odd jobs and Ben's steady trading with the Jawas, they brought in a steady income, and neither of them really needed that much anyway. It also meant that Ben didn't _have_ to go into town, which did a lot for his peace of mind. The likelihood of him being recognized all the way out here was slim, but given his past reputation, not impossible—a clone may be an anomaly, but a dead Jedi Master would raise every alarm from here to the Core. It had always been a risk, but since being a subsistence farmer wasn't an option on a desert planet, a necessary risk.

If Ben had known his life on Tatooine could be so comfortable, he would have gone and stolen Cody from the Empire himself years ago. He hoped Cody felt the same—the man seemed content, but even Cody's Force-presence had an impassable stoicism that was both reassuring and, at times, a bit difficult to navigate. Living primarily with Qui-Gon and then eventually Anakin for most of his life meant Ben was used to his companions projecting their opinions and emotional states through the Force—in the case of Anakin, to a disorienting degree for someone as sensitive to such things as Ben was. Cody just seemed...absolutely fine, all the time.

And so, of course, Ben worried.

"You know, I could easily have another bed made, if you wanted one to yourself," Ben said quietly into the darkness one night. He was lying on his back, but if he turned his head he could faintly see Cody's outline, facing towards him.

"Nhmrg," was Cody's response.

"You're asleep." The Cody shaped lump shifted.

"'M awake."

"We can talk about it later."

"Might be cold." It _did_ get rather cold during the night. The hot season was approaching, but even then, the temperature dropped substantially after dusk and continued to drop until the suns rose the next day. But if that was the issue, they could always get blankets. He said as much to Cody.

"'M used to it."

"I'm just saying, you don't _have_ to—" Ben was cut off by a warm, weathered hand seizing his own.

"Ben?"

"Yes, Cody?"

" _Ne'johaa._ " A short, startled laugh escaped Ben. There had been no bite to the words—indeed, they sounded almost fond—but he didn't think Cody had ever told him to shut up before, in any language, or in any tone of voice. Ben smiled. He'd come a long way from accidentally calling him "general" every other day.

" _Jate'ca, Kote._ "

" _Jate'ca, ner'jetii._ "

Ben fell asleep slowly, and tried not to think to hard about his friend's sleep-clouded voice, or the way he said "my Jedi," or the way his Mando'a name tasted on Ben's tongue.

When Ben woke up the next morning, Cody was wrapped around him like a dianoga with unusually strong tentacles, his muscular chest pressed against Ben's back and his face buried in his hair. Blushing furiously, he used the Force to extract himself—Ben couldn't beat Cody in terms of pure physical strength, even when the other man was asleep, it would seem.

\-----

As a result of their new arrangement, Ben didn't go into town for nearly four months. That seemed to be the amount of time he could stay in one place before he started to get unbearably antsy—he was sure that it had been extended greatly by Cody's presence, but the fact remained that he needed to confirm with his own eyes that the rest of the galaxy still existed every once in a while. His previous record had only been about a month and a half, and had ended when Ben had run out of tea leaves. He could not abide a lack of tea leaves.

They rode together in the sandcrawler, having traded a refurbished repulsor field generator in return for the lift. The Jawas were feeling generous—they were allowed to ride up in the control cabin, which was a vast improvement over the noisy, windowless loading bay. Neither of them couldn't stand up straight in the short room, so they sat by the door as the Jawas scurried around them, muttering in their little hurried voices. Ben looked over at Cody, who was kneeling beside him, tense.

"I'm fairly certain you are the only clone who's had the honor of riding on the bridge of a sandcrawler before."

"I can't imagine why." Ben felt a whisper of anxiety from him, a slight sense of claustrophobia. Ben could understand that—Cody was an expert close range fighter, but the lack of mobility in a space like this was still probably disconcerting for him. Ben felt it too—but Jedi were trained to be adaptable, and Ben was (mostly) able to release his own concerns into the Force. It was a wonder, the toll that years of constant combat could take on one's nerves.

" _Udesiir_ —it won't be long." He placed a hand on Cody's shoulder and felt the muscles there relax minutely. For the remainder of the trip, he translated the labels on the crawler's complex control panels aloud and explained the roots of the Jawaese alphabet. The tension in the Force gradually eased.

\-----

Mos Espa was busy that day. A convoy of freighters from the Western Reaches had stopped to refuel, probably on the way to Hutt space. It was good, in a way—Ben could lose himself in the throngs of the ships' crews while he did the shopping. Cody had gone to fix someone's broken coolth pump, and would meet back up with him at Madj's in the evening.

He picked up a variety of dried meats, a tang-root, a small uj'alayi cake for Cody, haroun bread. He passed over the undigestable hubba gourds at the fruit stand, but did get a pair of jogan fruits—Ben hadn't had one of those in a while. On his way out of the market area, he picked up an Endorian sunnydew flower for Madj.

"Well, aren't you chipper," the Lasat commented dryly as he bestowed the flower on her with what he thought was his most charming smile. "Did they have that ghastly Alderaanian tea ya like down at the markets or somethin'?"

"As a matter of fact they did, but—hey, it's not _ghastly!_ It's _fragrant_."

"It's _pungent_."

"Better than batuubucha," Ben countered, eliciting a gasp of incredulity from Madj.

"I'll hear _nothing_ bad about batuubucha in my own house!"

"I don't know how anyone could enjoy that cloying speeder-wreck of a beverage."

The debate continued in earnest until a consensus was reached; both teas paled in comparison to spiced nysillim tea or a mug of bantha chai. They were still negotiating the ideal cookie pairing, however, when Cody wandered in, looking delightfully sun-toasted.

"Am I interrupting something?"

"Cody! Sweet-sand cookies or blue buttermilk biscuits?" Ben asked in place of a greeting.

"Uh—I don't think I've ever had a blue buttermilk biscuit," he admitted. Madj looked alarmed.

"My poor child—we'll be fixing that as soon as possible," she said gravely.

\-----

That was how Cody found himself seated sandwiched between Ben and Madj in the corner booth of the Dozing Dewback Cantina, nibbling cautiously at a fluffy, buttery-smelling biscuit that had a mysterious blue tinge to it. Ben and Madj had each had one of them already, and were watching him intently. It was saltier than he'd expected, and the texture was soft.

"I think I like this better than a sweet-sand cookie," he started. Madj's yellow eyes lit up with glee, and Ben made a show of seeming put-out. " _But,_ I think they're too different to really be compared. Sweet-sand cookies are so...well, sweet." Madj snorted.

"I suppose you have a point there, my dear." Ben stroked his beard thoughtfully, his thin fingers making a few of its hairs stick out slightly. Cody tried very hard not to want to smooth them out.

The three of them made small talk for a while and listened to the Bith band play some low-key jazz on the small stage in the the back. A cluster of travelers came in, and Cody decided that if they ever wanted to get drink refills, they should probably do that before the late evening rush kicked in. He extracted himself from between his _jetii_ and the Lasat and brought their glasses up to the counter. The bartender was a tall male Twi'lek with vibrant teal skin.

"Could I get three refills, please? One spotchka, one jabba juice, and one spice tea."

"Yeah, just a minute," the Twi'lek replied in a heavy Rylothian accent, then turned away. Cody leaned against the bar, half-watching the door—old habits die hard, he supposed. He heard a low whistle behind him, and Cody turned to see a red-haired human man in a pilot's flight suit sidle up to him.

"If you were a laser, you'd be set to stunning—what's a catch like you doing in a place like this?"

_...What?_

"Um. Excuse me?" The man laughed, a thin sound, and his smile didn't quite meet his dark eyes as he responded to Cody's confusion.

"Pardon my manners—the name's Thad." He held out a hand, which Cody shook automatically. The pilot's hands were cold and clammy. Some clever part of Cody's brain was sending a distress signal to the rest of him, but Cody didn't want to be rude.

"Nice to meet you?" The man's grin widened. He hadn't let go of Cody's hand. Cody tugged back slightly, and his hand was released—somewhat reluctantly, he thought.

"I've got some Corellian whiskey back on my freighter. Why don't you join me?" _What the kriff?_ Cody's mind was racing. That same clever voice in his brain wanted to punch first and ask questions later, but some other _di'kut_ part was morbidly fascinated with... whatever was happening here. Not fascinated enough, though.

"No thanks," he said firmly. The man leaned in towards him slightly, and Cody leaned back.

"You sure? It's the good stuff. And I could show you...my ship." _Yeah, this was not good._ Cody didn't want to make a scene, but he desperately wanted to get out of this situation. 

"Idon'tthinkmyboyfriendwouldlikethat," Cody said in a rush. Then he processed what he had said. _Kriff._ He forced himself not to look toward the corner booth. He was far out of any normal sentient's hearing range, but Cody was pretty sure his _jetii_ could hear a glowbug sneeze from across a starship hanger.

It worked, though. The man leaned back with a frustrated sigh and picked up his drink.

"A shame. If you change your mind, my ship's in bay 23." He knocked slightly into Cody's shoulder as he walked by him, making Cody shudder.

"Here are those refills," the bartender called to Cody, who gathered the drinks up in his arms and shuffled quickly back towards the booth. Only then did he look towards Ben.

_Oh, shit._

Ben was wearing an expression of utter _venom._ He wasn't looking at Cody, thank the Force—if Ben ever looked at him like that, Cody thought he might drop dead on the spot. His normally tranquil, sky-colored eyes were like knives carved out of ice, and his jaw was set rigidly. If Ben ever resorted to Force-choking someone, he was pretty sure that would be the expression on his face when it happened. Suddenly apprehensive, Cody followed his gaze, but he seemed to be looking into a clump of customers at the bar, so Cody couldn't figure out who, specifically, he was looking at. Fortunately, no one seemed to be dying over there.

The look vanished in a blink when Cody slid back into the booth beside Ben. He passed the drinks around. When he passed the spotchka to Madj, he noticed her eyeing him with a knowing look.

"Thank you, my dear," Ben said to his left, good-natured smile firmly in place, as though he hadn't just been glowering in a way that would have sent Dooku himself running for the hills.

"No problem. Is everything alright?"

"Of course. Right, Madj?" Madj did the Lasat equivalent of raising an eyebrow, but agreed.

Cody gradually became aware of an almost-unnoticeable-yet-insistent...Force-tug on his mind. Cody briefly lost the thread of the conversation, trying to interpret this new subconscious signal. After a few minutes, he experimentally settled an arm along the back of the booth behind (but not touching) Ben's shoulders, which seemed to do the trick—the sensation retreated abruptly, like a startled tooka under a barn. Ben didn't lean back, didn't acknowledge the change at all, but he did scoot a few inches closer to Cody as they all chatted.

Cody didn't really know what to make of that. It had been a strange day all around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made up the Mando'a equivalent of "goodnight," a combination of "jate" meaning good, and "ca" meaning night. If anyone actually knows what the word is feel free to lmk and I will substitute that!


	12. Three Moons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben and Cody enjoy the night sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a short chapter to close out part one! I was hoping there might be some Tatooine moon lore floating around, but there wasn't, so I made it up. I hope it is suitably...mystical. 
> 
> I hope you all enjoyed this story! It was so fun to write, and I greatly appreciate all the support from here and tumblr. You guys really keep me going. The first chapter of part two should be up by tomorrow at the latest! I've gotten a headstart on in.

The best time of day on Tatooine, Cody firmly believed, was sunset. He liked the diverse gradients of colors on the horizon, never the same two days in a row; he liked the way the angled sunlight passed through the mists, creating a mysterious golden halo around the hills in the distance. He and Ben often sat up on Ben's rocky meditation plateau, in comfortable silence, until the moons rose and the sky filled to the brim with stars. There were no lights to pollute the view for miles. It almost looked peaceful up there. Cody wished that it actually was.

It had been too hot to spend much time outside that day, and so he and Ben were both reluctant to go back inside now that it had cooled off. They sat together, leaning against a boulder, sides nearly touching, looking up. All three of Tatooine's moons were suspended in the sky, in a little row. A rare occurrence—the moons orbited out of sync, and it was uncommon for them to all be in the visible range at once, let alone in the vicinity of each other like they were then. Their reflected light cast a silvery blue glow over the Wastes.

"Do you know their names?" Ben asked him, his voice barely louder than a whisper, as though trying not to wake up the canyons beneath them.

"I don't think so," Cody replied, mimicking the other man's volume. Ben shifted and pointed to the largest of the moons, which was a pale, opalescent teal.

"Ghomrassen, the mother; then there's Guermessa, the sister," he lowered his hand to the larger of the two smaller moons, less than a fifth of the size of Ghomrassen. It was a vivid, deep cobalt. "And then the smallest is Chenini, the son." He pointed up and to the left Ghomrassen, where the little moon shone, bright white—almost too bright to look at. Ben's hand drifted back to his side. Cody could just barely feel the other man's hair tickling his shoulder when the breeze picked up.

"Legend has it that Chenini was stolen away from his mother when he was a baby—taken offworld, by pirates, or slavers, or some ancient equivalent. Ghomrassen was distraught. Tatooine didn't have any ships of its own, so she couldn't go after him. The baby's sister, Guermessa, couldn't stand to see her mother fall apart. She went to their tribe's guardian, an ancient, all-knowing being—possibly the first krayt dragon, though sources differ—who taught her how to build a starship out of Tatooine's rocks and ore. Years later, when the ship was completed, Guermessa and Ghomrassen left to search for Chenini..." Ben trailed off, lost in thought. Cody looked over at him. The light of the moons glinted against the silver in his hair.

"Then what?" Ben's eyes refocused on him, and his little smile made Cody's breath catch in his throat.

"Every telling ends in a different way. Some say they never made it out of the atmosphere. Others say they found the son, but that the ship hit debris upon their return and they crashed into the sea. I prefer the last interpretation—that all three made it home safely, and that was how the ancient Kumumgah learned to travel through space."

"If they didn't at least make it back, then how are there three moons and not just two?" Ben laughed. Cody thought for a second. There had been something weird about one of the endings...

"Wait. Crashed into _the sea?_ "

"Mhm. Tatooine was mostly a rainforest at one time. No one really knows what happened—war, or some sort of ecological disaster." _Wild._ Cody couldn't picture the planet covered in trees. He could barely even picture a tree at all, it had been so long since he'd seen one.

They fell into silence again. A meteor flitted through the sky, then vanished. The air was almost chilly by then, and Cody was just about to check to see if Ben was too cold when he felt the other man's head settle itself on his shoulder. He was very warm. Cody didn't dare turn his own head, but he scooted down slightly so Ben could rest more comfortably. He hummed appreciatively.

Cody's heart was beating as though he'd just run for miles, and he hoped dearly that Ben wasn't paying attention to it. It slowed to its normal rate gradually as he adjusted to the contact. He could feel the rise and fall of Ben's chest against his arm.

"I'm...worried." Cody turned slightly, realized Ben's head was _right there,_ then snapped his gaze forward again. He wasn't entirely sure he'd be able to hold a conversation like this, with his bewitchingly attractive _jetii_ pressed against his side, radiating heat and that strange magnetic energy that all Jedi seemed to have but that Ben had in excess, but he did his best. Ben never admitted that he was worried.

"About what?"

"My extended assignment."

"Oh." Cody still didn't really know what that was.

"I'm sorry I haven't told you more," he said, his voice quiet, sad.

"I understand."

He did understand. As much as he wished he could help, he trusted Ben to do what was best for everyone. If Cody needed to know, Ben would tell him. Cody would be there. It only stung a little bit that his friend hadn't confided in him, as irrational as that was.

"There are things I must do, but the situation prevents me from meddling. If I'd known...I would have done things differently. The people involved don't trust me—for reasons that may not be rational, but are at least understandable," he paused, but Cody sensed he was going to say more.

"But I'm worried that it will become too late, too dangerous for everyone, if I can't convince them to let me help. It may be risky, but it's more risky than allowing things to continue as they are. Normally, everything would have been...things would have been different." He sighed, and Cody felt the air stir near his neck.

"You'll do what's right," Cody found himself saying. He realized he'd linked his arm loosely with Ben's—when had that happened? "You always do."

"I don't know about that."

"No, it's true. It's not your fault the universe is kriffed up." Cody felt rather than heard Ben's little laugh.

"Thank you, Cody."

"And I'm here, if you need me," he added, even though it was a given. Ben snuggled up against him. Cody suspected, from the way his muscles had relaxed and the softness of his voice, that Ben was going to fall asleep.

"I know," Ben said, barely audible. And then he fell asleep. Cody smiled to himself, and leaned his head back to watch the stars.


End file.
